Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Oneness, Manyness

“What is up with that bird?” I’m
wondering, as I listen to a long, drawn-out chittering. This isn’t birdsong. It doesn’t sound like a celebration of
spring, or an advertisement for love. It
sounds more like an urgent telegraph. Maybe
it’s calling its mate to hurry home because there’s a squirrel inching closer
to the nest.

It’s a cool day, with a light wind
blowing, and it’s reached that blessed spot – not too cold any more, not too
hot yet - where I can actually keep my office window open. So all through the day, I hear
half-understood messages from all kinds of passersby. I can guess at interpretations, but I can
never really know.

In a couple of weeks, I’ll be traveling. I’ll be one of those voices on the wind,
flitting from one place to another, as I head south, visiting friends along the
way, until I reach Womonwrites. I’ll
spend a week at the lesbian writers’ conference - visiting friends, picking up inspiration, giving
a workshop, doing readings for people, and of course, playing a little
Scrabble!

There’s a lot to do before then, I know
it, but I’m having a hard time getting my act together these days. Yes, it’s partly
because Mercury has been retrograde the last three weeks, and is just about to
turn direct again tomorrow (on May 3,
12:33 pm EDST). When Mercury changes
direction, it’s always very slow for a week or so. This gives us time to think about what’s next,
hopefully, before the pace quickens.

But it’s more than that. It’s the inconjunct between Jupiter and Neptune,
which will be with us all through May. All Neptune aspects invite contemplation. They take you away from business as
usual. Nothing routine seems all that
compelling. They invite you to back up,
to take the long view, to see everything with a cosmic perspective. Neptune dissolves the barriers.

If I want a Neptunian view from my
window, I blur my focus, and all I see is a mash-up of bright green. It’s lovely.
When I hear a bird sounding an alarm, it blends into the overall music -
the songs of other birds, the buzz of
insects, the whistle of a faraway train. It’s all one.
That’s Neptune’s message, especially as it moves through its home sign, Pisces.

Neptune is the planet of spirituality in
its purest form. This is not about laws,
not about dogma, not even about ethics.
It’s impossible to treat anyone wrong if you understand that you are
that person, and that person is you. We
all come from this state of beautiful oneness, and there’s a part of us that
always yearns for it.

In my old coven, we used to sing this
song:

We all come from the Goddess, and to her
we shall return,

Like a drop of rain flowing to the
ocean.

Hoof and horn, hoof and horn, all that
dies shall be reborn.

Corn and grain, all that falls shall
rise again.

And yet, and yet. When this lovely oneness broke into parts, when
this world of variations happened, it happened for a reason, no? We incarnated with stories, phobias, wisdom,
and attractions already in place, ready to stitch together our own little piece
of the quilt. If it was whole to start
with, what are we making?

For me, this is the central paradox of
any spiritual viewpoint. I do believe we
are making it as we go. I believe we are
creating with every dream and thought and movement, calling into being
something that never existed before. And
so my sense is that this wholeness is not a static thing, even though I understand
the contradiction. It’s whole, yet it
becomes.

So don’t be surprised this month if you
find yourself standing for a long time at a tree, gazing up, and seeing nothing
but green light. Don’t be surprised if
you’re in the middle of washing dishes, and you stop what you’re doing because
you’re amazed by water. Don’t be
surprised if time changes shape, even more than usual, and long afternoons last
a hundred years, while short nights are over in a blink.

And what is Jupiter doing in this Neptune/Jupiter
inconjunct? Jupiter is the planet of
expansion, and whenever it’s in aspect with any planet, it eggs the other one
on. So the diffuse and holistic
awareness of Neptune is exaggerated, publicized, trumpeted by Jupiter. Sometimes this is a good thing, as in the
Climate March this week. Jupiter is good
at writing placards, making speeches.
And it’s now going through Libra, so it also inclines to legal
strategies.

But although Neptune is the planet of
saintliness, of enlightenment, of all-encompassing spiritual awareness, it’s
also the planet of illusion and delusion.
And so Jupiter can exaggerate this
confusion too, while this Jupiter/Neptune inconjunct is going on. Conspiracy theorists, for example, have a
bigger and more holistic world view.
They see all the ways that the little threads come together. But are they contributing to spiritual
principles like peace and universal love?
What’s left out of this bigger world view? What remains unseen?

And none of us can see it all. We are humans, possessed of a very useful focused
vision which helps us find edible berries and avoid mastodons. We aren’t supposed to ignore the physical messages
around us, and just spend our time just contemplating eternity. We’ll be back there before we know it; it won’t be long.

This Jupiter/Neptune inconjunct is
seductive, encouraging us to take the little we know and run with it. And sometimes you have to do it, you have to
have faith in the visions that entice you, the ones that make your heart
sing. But I see it as a slow process,
and a process that all beings have to do at approximately the same time. It takes time to grow, to see more than just
the fields and woods that surround us, and yet to still see them clearly.